1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a printing system for printing print information on a print-information recording medium and for writing electronic information into an electronic-information recording medium carried on the print-information recording medium, and more particularly, to a printing system capable of writing electronic information into an electronic-information recording medium in a manner consistent with print information including at least either one of contactlessly readable code information and image information visible to human being.
2. Description of the Related Art
Instead of a conventional information recording medium such as a magnetic card and a contact-type IC card, an information recording medium (hereinafter referred to as RFID tag) has been developed, which is comprised of a print-information recording medium and an electronic-information recording medium (hereinafter referred to as RFID chip) such as IC chip, and in which the electronic-information recording medium is carried on the print-information recording medium and is adapted to allow electronic information to be contactlessly read therefrom and written thereto. Thus, the RFID tag can eliminate the necessity of being kept in contact with a readout/write device at the time of electronic information being read from and written into the RFID tag, and therefore, the RFID tag is especially expected as an alternative to a bar code that is used in distribution management (see for example, Japanese unexamined patent publication no. 11-353435).
The bar code conventionally used for distribution management is adapted to be read by use of a special-purpose device, and therefore, the bar code content cannot generally immediately be recognized by human being by glancing at the bar code. In this regard, image information (character information and/or symbolic information) which is visible to and whose content is understandable to human being (hereinafter referred to as “image information visible to human being”) is sometimes printed at the same time when the bar code is printed.
The printing of bar code and the printing of image information visible to human being can be made by using the same printing system, and hence it is relatively easy to ensure the consistency between information given by a bar code and image information visible to human being. On the other hand, the writing of electronic information (hereinafter referred to as RFID data) into the RFID chip is performed by use of a device different from a device for printing image information visible to human being. Moreover, according to the prior art, in most cases, different applications are used for preparation, edition, and management of print data of image information visible to human being and of RFID data written into the RFID tag. This makes it difficult to ensure the consistency between the RFID data (electronic information) to be written into the RFID tag and the image information printed thereon.
To print the image information visible to human being onto the print-information recording medium of the RFID tag, a laser printer or the like is ordinarily used. A mainstream laser printer or the like employs a high temperature roller that is adapted to be in contact with the print-information recording medium in order to fix toner to the recording medium. Due to the presence of the high temperature roller, there is a fear that the RFID tag may be damaged.
In an existing printer engine or the like that is used to print the image information visible to human being, the print-information recording medium is often bent therein. Therefore, the RFID tag, especially the RFID chip carried on the print-information recording medium, can be damaged due to the bending of the recording medium.